Ian Rowlands, Dave Nicholas, and Paul Huntingdon, Scholarly Communication in the Digital Environment: What Do Authors Want? Ciber, March 18, 2004 (apparently released in May). The results of a survey of 4,000 senior researchers from 97 countries, apparently the largest survey yet conducted of scholarly authors on OA and scholarly publication. Excerpt: "Many of the comments that authors made were very hostile towards commercial publishers. Authors are resentful of what they see as a perversion of the ethos of science ('information should be free') for market ends. They do not understand or appreciate the value added that publishers bring to the scholarly communication process....Authors' attitudes to the open access movement are generally positive, although there are significant reservations about quality and preservation in an increasingly digital information landscape. The key sticking point for commercial open access publishing is that there seems to be great resistance, both in principle and in practice to the question of author payment ('can't pay won't pay' seems to be the message). Unsurprisingly, authors want open access at both ends of the chain: as authors and as readers....Older, more senior authors, seem much more wedded to the traditional subscription print-based model than their younger peers. These authors are more likely to self-publish on the web and to feel more positively towards the open access movement."
Update. The report link was dead for a few days but has now been fixed.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/18/2004 07:49:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
